In 1992, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Set during World War II, the story focuses on Carmen Jones, a vixen who works in a parachute factory in North Carolina. When she is arrested for fighting with a co-worker who reported her for arriving late for work, foreman Sgt. Brown assigns young soldier Joe to deliver her to the authorities, much to the dismay of Joe's fiancée Cindy Lou, who had agreed to marry him during his leave.
While en route, Carmen suggests she and Joe stop for a meal and a little romance, and his refusal intensifies her determination to seduce him. When their army jeep ends up in the river, she suggests they spend the night at her grandmother's house nearby and continue their journey by train the following day, and that night Joe succumbs to Carmen's advances. The next morning he awakens to find a note in which she says although she loves him she is unable to deal with time in jail and is running away.
Joe is locked in the stockade for allowing his prisoner to escape, and Cindy Lou arrives just as a rose from Carmen is delivered to him, prompting her to leave abruptly. Having found work in a Louisiana nightclub, Carmen awaits his release. One night champion prizefighter Husky Miller enters with an entourage and introduces himself to Carmen, who expresses no interest in him. Husky orders his manager Rum Daniels to offer her jewelry, furs, and an expensive hotel suite if she and her friends Frankie and Myrt accompany him to Chicago, but she declines the offer. Just then, Joe arrives and announces he must report to flying school immediately. Angered, Carmen decides to leave with Sgt. Brown, who also has appeared on the scene, and Joe severely beats him. Realizing he will be sentenced to a long prison term for hitting his superior, Joe flees to Chicago with Carmen.
While Joe remains hidden in a shabby rented room, Carmen secretly visits Husky's gym to ask Frankie for a loan, but she insists she has no money of her own. Carmen returns to the boarding house with a bag of groceries, and Joe questions how she paid for them. The two argue, and she goes to Husky's hotel suite to play cards with her friends. When she draws the nine of spades, she interprets it as a premonition of impending doom and descends into a quagmire of drink and debauchery.
Cindy Lou arrives at Husky's gym in search of Carmen just before Joe appears. Ignoring his former sweetheart, he orders Carmen to leave with him and threatens Husky with a knife when he tries to intervene. Carmen helps Joe escape the military police, but during Husky's big fight, Joe finds Carmen in the crowd and pulls her into a storage room, where he begs her to return to him. When she rebuffs him, Joe strangles Carmen to death just before the police arrive to apprehend him for desertion.
The Broadway production of Carmen Jones opened on December 2, 1943 and ran for 503 performances. When he saw it, Otto Preminger dismissed it as a series of "skits loosely based on the opera" with a score "simplified and changed so that the performers who had no operatic training could sing it." In adapting it for the screen, he wanted to make "a dramatic film with music rather than a conventional film musical," so he decided to return to the original source material - the Prosper Mérimée novella - and hired Harry Kleiner, whom he had taught at Yale University, to expand the story beyond the limitations imposed upon it by the Bizet opera and Hammerstein's interpretation of it.
Preminger realized no major studio would be interested in financing an operatic film with an all-black cast, so he decided to produce it independently. He anticipated United Artist executives Arthur B. Krim and Robert S. Benjamin, who had supported him in his censorship battles with The Moon Is Blue, would be willing to invest in the project, but the two felt it was not economically viable and declined. Following the completion of his previous film, River of No Return, Preminger had paid 20th Century Fox $150,000 to cancel the remainder of his contract so he was surprised when Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck contacted him and offered to finance the film while allowing him to operate as a fully independent filmmaker. In December 1953, he accepted $750,000 and began what became a prolonged preproduction period. He hired cinematographer Sam Leavitt as director of photography, Herschel Burke Gilbert as musical director, and Herbert Ross as choreographer and began to scout locations.
On April 14, 1954, six weeks before principal photography was scheduled to begin, Preminger was contacted by Joseph Breen, who was in the final months of his leadership of the office of the Motion Picture Production Code. Breen had clashed with Preminger over The Moon Is Blue and still resented the director's success in releasing that film without a seal of approval. He cited the "over-emphasis on lustfulness" in Carmen Jones and was outraged by the screenplay's failure to include "any voice of morality properly condemning Carmen's complete lack of morals." Preminger agreed to make some minor adjustments to the script and even filmed two versions of scenes Breen found objectionable, although he included the more controversial ones in the final film.
Because he himself was sensitive to the issue of racial representation in the film, Preminger had no objections when Zanuck urged him to submit the script to Walter Francis White, executive secretary of the NAACP, who had no objection to it.
Preminger began to assemble his cast. Harry Belafonte, a folk singer who recently had introduced Calypso music to a mainstream audience, had only one film to his credit, but he had just won the Tony Award and Theatre World Award for his performance in John Murray Anderson's Almanac, and Preminger cast him as Joe. Pearl Bailey's sole screen credit was the 1948 film Isn't It Romantic?, but she had achieved success as a band singer and was familiar to television audiences from her appearances on Your Show of Shows, so she was assigned the role of Frankie. Joe Adams was a Los Angeles disc jockey with no acting experience, but Preminger felt he had the right look for Husky. Diahann Carroll auditioned for the title role, but she was so terrified of the director she could barely focus on the scene, and Preminger cast her in the small supporting role of Myrt instead.
Preminger was familiar with Dorothy Dandridge but felt she was incapable of exuding the sultry sex appeal the role of Carmen demanded, particularly after having seen Dandridge's performance as a demure schoolteacher opposite Belafonte in 1953's Bright Road, Her agent's office was in the same building where Preminger's brother Ingo worked, and he asked Ingo to intercede on his client's behalf. At his first meeting with Dandridge, Preminger told her she was "lovely" and looked like a "model" or "a beautiful butterfly," but not Carmen, and suggested she audition for the role of Cindy Lou. Dandridge took the script and left, and when she returned she was dressed and behaved exactly as Preminger envisioned Carmen. The director was impressed enough to schedule a screen test for mid-May, after Dandridge completed a singing engagement in St. Louis. In the interim he cast Juilliard School graduate Olga James as Cindy Lou.
On May 21, Preminger announced Dandridge had been cast as Carmen. Initially thrilled by the prospect of playing one of the best film roles ever offered an African American female, Dandridge quickly began to doubt her ability to do it justice. After several days, she told her agent to advise Preminger she was backing out of the project. The director drove to her apartment to reassure her and assuage her fears, and the two unexpectedly began a passionate affair.
Although Dandridge and Belafonte were singers, neither was capable of singing the operatic score, so Marilyn Horne and LeVern Hutcherson were hired to record their vocals, and soundtrack recording began on June 18. Horne later recalled, "Even though I was at that time a very light lyric soprano, I did everything I possibly could to imitate the voice of Dorothy Dandridge. I spent many hours with her. In fact, one of the reasons I was chosen to do this dubbing was that I was able to imitate her voice had she been able to sing in the proper register."
Following three weeks of rehearsal, filming in CinemaScope began on June 30. Preminger had opted to remain in California for the shoot, with El Monte doubling for the Southern exteriors and the Chicago interiors being filmed at the Culver Studios. Principal photography was completed in early August, and Preminger and the Fox publicity studio began promoting both the film and its star. Dandridge was featured in Ebony and photographed for the cover of Life and appeared on a live television broadcast on October 24, four days prior to the opening, to sing two songs from the film.
The opening title sequence is the first film title sequence created by Saul Bass, and marked the beginning of Bass's long professional relationship with Preminiger.
The film had its world premiere at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City on October 28, 1954. The following February, it opened in London and Berlin, and in both cities it played for more than a year in exclusive first-run engagements. Because of a technicality in French copyright laws, the film was unable to have a theatrical release in France, although it was permitted to open the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, where for the first time Preminger and Dandridge openly flaunted their relationship.
Dorothy Dandridge became Hollywood’s First Black Theatrical Movie Star. She made the cover of Life Magazine, Billed as "Hollywood’s Fiery Carmen Jones". It was the first time a Black Woman made the cover of Life Magazine, breaking another color barrier.
Soon after, the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts, and Sciences announced the nominations
for the 1955 Oscar Awards. Dandridgewas nominated for Best Actress along with; Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Jane Wyman. Only two Black’s who had previously been nominated for Oscars, they were; Hattie McDaniel, who won in 1939 for "Gone with the Wind" and Ethel Waters, in 1949 for "Pinky". Never before had a Negro been nominated in a Leading Category.
While America was in a Race turmoil with Boycotts, Sit-Ins and The House of UN-American Activities Committee Blacklisting. Dandridge was signing contracts with 20th Century Fox for an astounding salary. Making her the highest paid Actress in the History of Motion Pictures.
This immediately broke the color barrier with a six-week engagement at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Dandridge became the First Negro Entertainer to work and stay at the Exclusive Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manahttan. On Oscar night Grace Kelly took home the award. But, Dandridge was a winner for all Negro Americans; it was a Historic occasion. She became the first Negro to present at the
Oscar’s at Academy Awards Ceremonies.
The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. It was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Film from any Source but lost to Richard III.
Dorothy Dandridge was also nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress, but lost to Betsy Blair in Marty. At the 5th Berlin International Film Festival and the film won the Bronze Berlin Bear award The film was also honored at the Locarno International Film Festival.
Herschel Burke Gilbert was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture but lost to Adolph Deutsch and Saul Chaplin for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
Harry Kleiner was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Musical.
